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Veggie-heavy, stress-reducingregimen prolongs cell lifeBy Makiko Kitamura

September 19, 2013

(Bloomberg) -- The fountain of youth may simply be a healthy diet and reduced stress after all,

not a magic pill or expensive cosmetics.

Comprehensive lifestyle changes, including more fruit and vegetables as well as meditation and

yoga, were shown to reverse signs of aging at the cellular level for the first time in a study

published this week.

Adopting a diet rich in unprocessed foods combined with moderate exercise and stress

management over five years increased the length of telomeres, the ends of chromosomes linked

to aging, according to a study of 35 men published in theLancetmedical journal. No previous

study has shown the effect of lifestyle changes on telomere length, the authors say.

The research, led by Dean Ornish, founder of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute, adds

to evidence of the benefits of healthy habits. Ornishs Lifestyle Heart Trial, published in 1998,

showed a reversal of coronary heart disease over five years. Patients who receive 72 hours of

training from medical professionals on Ornishs program for reversing heart disease have been

reimbursed by Medicare since January 2011.

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So often, people think it has to be a new drug or laser, something really high-tech and

expensive, to be powerful, Ornish says. Our studies are showing that simple changes in our

lifestyle have powerful impacts in ways that we can measure.

Ornish collaborated on the study with Elizabeth Blackburn, who shared the Nobel Prize in

medicine in 2009 with Carol Greider and Jack Szostak for research on the telomerase

immortality enzyme, which prevents telomeres from being shaved off.

He was inspired by Blackburns research showing that the shortening of telomeres, and

therefore aging, is accelerated by emotional stress such as that experienced by women who have

parents with Alzheimers disease or children with autism.

My general experience is that things in biology go both ways, says Ornish, a professor of

medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. If bad things make them shorter,

maybe good things make them longer. So we had lunch together and I said, Why dont we find

out?

In addition to changes in diet, the program included 30 minutes of walking six days a week; 60

minutes of daily stress management, mostly in the form of yoga and meditation; and a 60-

minute support group session once a week.

Telomere length increased among the men in the lifestyle intervention group and decreased in

the control group. As telomeres become shorter, cells age and die more quickly. The study

authors said they are rather like the tips of shoelaces that keep them from fraying.

In July, Ornish entered into a partnership with Healthways Inc., a disease and wellness

management company, to help meet overwhelming demand for his Medicare-reimbursed

program, he said.